The Lucky Box

A string of rather pleasant sounds rang out one after another.

I made my choice without a moment's hesitation.

Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Stamina, Lifespan, Charm, Appearance, Luck.

Obviously, Luck. I had already experienced what Luck could do inside that Rift, so there was nothing to think about.

Just then, a new notification popped up.

With a fanfare of notifications, a golden box bounced out of thin air with a light pop.

'A Lucky Box?'

Even I had never seen one before.

Which was only natural. In the game, I'd been too busy grinding the other stats to bother. It was only here, in this world, that I learned Luck even existed as a bonus stat option.

I examined the box. It was a golden box shaped exactly like the cheap prize machines you'd find at an arcade, and it stirred up expectations despite myself.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I hastily opened it. Golden light blazed out from the seams.

Pu-pyuu! Somewhere, a rowdy trumpet fanfare blared to life.

The golden glow grew fiercer and fiercer, then shifted into rainbow colors. A heavy drumbeat joined in.

'Oh, come on.'

Anyone could see that was a jackpot effect.

Yes. Hadn't I suffered through nothing but hardship ever since I got transmigrated here?

A reward like this was long overdue.

For the first time in ages, I felt my heart flutter with genuine excitement.

Soon the light began to fade. As the dazzling colors dissolved away, the contents of the box were revealed.

I peered inside with hopeful eyes.

And what the box held was—

"GGUGA!!"

...A small, smiling animal that looked like an oversized rodent.

I'd seen one before, back at the zoo before I was transmigrated. The name was... what was it again?

'A quokka?'

The quokka popped upright out of the box, pressed its tiny front paws together against its belly, and bowed. It was a formal, ceremonial greeting—disconcertingly so.

Ding!

The lazy excuse for a name and the half-hearted description made my eyes screw shut.

I urgently inspected the contents one more time.

There was nothing else. The quokka was the whole reward.

Just then, Milo barged in out of nowhere.

"Whoa, what's this, Boss? It's so cute!"

Milo's eyes were sparkling the moment he laid them on the quokka.

Seven corpses were sprawled barely an arm's length away, and Milo's attention was locked entirely on the little creature.

"What's its name?"

"Forget the name. You should be asking how fast we can throw it away."

"How could anyone throw away something this cute! Absolutely not!"

It was undeniably adorable, I had to admit. A beaming quokka, bowing politely with that smile plastered across its face.

It didn't get any cuter ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠than this. Truly the ceiling of cuteness.

The only problem was that what I needed was not a well-mannered, smiling quokka.

Gu-ga! Gu-ga! The quokka scuttled its stubby paws about urgently. It seemed to want to say something.

"What is it?"

The quokka stretched out a paw. It looked like it was asking for something.

When I snatched Milo's guard baton and handed it over, the quokka snatched it up, stretched its tiny mouth wide open, and swallowed the baton whole.

Gu-ga! Having cleanly gulped down the baton, the quokka spread both arms wide like a magician pulling off a grand finale.

The quokka was about the size of my two fists combined. Swallowing a baton longer than a human arm was physically impossible.

And yet it had swallowed the thing in one go—without so much as a bulge in its belly.

"Oho, not bad."

Caught up in the little showman's performance, I found myself applauding.

"Hey! We're dead if you lose that! Spit it out, now!"

Milo yelped in a panic.

The quokka wiggled its stubby little ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠fingers, as if to say, just wait a moment.

Then it gripped both corners of its mouth with its paws and stretched them wide.

Guuuu-uuuk! Guuuu-uuuk! Accompanied by an obnoxious sound effect, the guard baton emerged once more from the tiny mouth.

'So it's a pocket dimension.'

Sub-space magic was a pinnacle-tier spell—so high-level it was called the mark of an Archmage.

And this quokka had one.

"How much can you stuff in there?"

Gu-ga! Gu-ga! The quokka spread its paws as wide as it could. Unfortunately, its arms were simply too short for the gesture to mean anything.

Then the quokka pointed at Milo—and held up all ten fingers.

"Ten times the size of this guy?"

Gu-ga! Gu-ga! The quokka nodded its head earnestly.

A sub-dimensional quokka with ten times Milo's worth of storage—

This was no dud.

It was a jackpot. A massive, screaming jackpot.

"Hmm. 'Gguga' sounds like a good name."

"Didn't you just say to forget the name—?"

"Who on earth said something so stupid?"

"Uh... no, but isn't that name way too lazy? Its cry is gu-ga, so you name it Gguga? Come on, something cute like Adna or Gwen—"

Gu-ga! Gu-ga!

Gguga stuck up both its thumbs and grinned from ear to ear.

"Sounds like Gguga is very happy with it?"

Gu-ga!

Gguga bobbed its head up and down enthusiastically. A quokka with sharp instincts, too.

I treasured Gguga carefully, cradling it close. Milo's eyes twitched as he stared at me.

"What."

"Ahem, no, nothing. So what do we do about... these?"

Milo asked, pointing to the side.

I turned my head and saw seven corpses sprawled across the ground. They were mangled so horribly that the word 'demon knight' needed no explanation.

"Leave them."

"...I'm sorry, what? Why would we leave them? If we report demon knights up the chain, they'll shower us with rewards. You could become the youngest squad captain in history!"

"Don't need it."

I meant every word. I'd chosen the guard detail precisely because it let me involve myself in the Academy's affairs without drawing useless attention. The thought of earning merit and climbing the ranks had never once crossed my mind.

If I'd wanted a lofty position in the first place, I would have stayed beside the Commander-in-Chief.

"I knew it."

Milo nodded, as if some grand truth had just dawned on him.

The look in Milo's eyes as he gazed at me was blindingly earnest—the same look a foot soldier on the battlefield gives when they've placed their life in someone's hands.

"What's with those eyes?"

"Nothing, sir. It's classified, isn't it."

"What is?"

"Now I understand completely."

"Understand what, exactly?"

"It's fine. I know. Classified means classified."

Milo nodded again and again, his face set with solemn resolve. He had clearly misunderstood something, and thoroughly.

"Then what about the wagon? Do we leave that too?"

Milo asked, glancing at the wagon Colin had been driving.

"Yes. I have a use for it."

"A use?"

Caw!

Right on cue, a crow came flapping over, a guard uniform clutched in its beak.

"Why does a crow have a guard uniform—so it is classified business."

Whatever nonsense Milo muttered, I changed into the uniform and headed back to the Back Gate.

The gate inspection had wrapped up, and the guards were getting ready to clock out.

Volcan stood off to one side, alone and forlorn.

I shot Volcan a sidelong glance and spoke to Bex.

"We've got a problem."

"...A problem? What problem?"

"Colin, who passed through earlier—he was a demon knight."

"Ahh, so Colin was a demon knight. ...I'm sorry, what?"

Bex's brow crumpled violently. Then he burst out laughing in disbelief.

"Haha, what a wicked sense of humor you have."

He clearly thought I was joking.

A perfectly reasonable reaction. A demon knight—who'd ever heard of such a thing?

"No joke. If you don't believe me, go see for yourself."

"See for myself?"

"It's right over there."

"???"

I started walking. Behind me trailed Bex and a handful of guards, along with Volcan and Milo.

Before long we reached the spot where the demon knights had fallen. The state of the corpses was so gruesome that no explanation of what a demon knight was proved necessary.

"Th-they're real demon knights..."

"Freshly caught, too. Practically still warm."

"...What?"

"I was joking about the earlier part."

Bex stared at me as if he were looking at a demon knight himself, then pulled himself together.

"Wh-who caught them?"

He hadn't considered for even a second that it might have been me.

Which was fair enough. I was the new guy. Even if I claimed credit, no one would believe me.

Exactly what I wanted.

"Professor Leon caught them."

...Leon?

Bex mumbled blankly.

As the incoming class flooded in this year, Elysium Academy had gone to special lengths with its faculty.

They assembled a professor roster worthy of the rising caliber of the student body—the very best appointments money and reputation could secure.

The new students gossiped about their professors day in and day out.

But the name on everyone's lips most often was not the Knight of Radiance, nor the Twin Witches—the rising tower masters.

The hottest professor at Elysium Academy right now was—

"Professor Leon, here's my course registration form."

Leon stared down at the towering stack of registration forms and pondered, deeply and seriously.

Where exactly did it all go wrong?

Leon was a graduate of Elysium Academy. The moment he'd thrown his cap, he'd marched straight to the front lines.

He'd gone bearing the grand conviction of defending the Empire—but the front lines were nothing like what he'd imagined. Filthy, dangerous, damp, and terrifying.

Just as he was reaching the very limit of what he could endure, an offer arrived from Elysium Academy: a professorship. He snatched it up without a second thought.

During his student days, he hadn't distinguished himself nearly as much as he'd hoped—but this time, he'd been confident. He had years of that brutal front line ground into his bones.

Reality, however, had other plans for Leon.

Elysium Academy's faculty was simply too dazzling. His own name barely registered as a footnote.

It stung. He had crawled through hell on the front lines—how dare they overlook him?

Perhaps it was that resentment that caused the problem.

One day, a strange rumor began to circulate.

That he was an unofficial Imperial Ten Swords. That he was a secret weapon of the Magic Tower Coalition.

At first, Leon brushed it off as some mischievous prank. The Empire officially conferred the Imperial Sword rankings—what did 'unofficial' even mean?

The secret weapon rumor made no more sense.

The Magic Tower Coalition was, if anything, notorious for its love of bragging, forever inflating its achievements.

And that organization was secretly raising a hidden weapon? Ridiculous. The story didn't hold a drop of water.

Convinced the rumor wasn't worth responding to, Leon let it slide. No—if he was honest, at first he'd rather enjoyed it.

Thanks to the bizarre rumor, his name was being bandied about everywhere, and he did have genuine confidence in his skills.

For a while, Leon basked in the attention.

I should have shut it down right then.

Instead of shrinking, the rumor only swelled fatter and faster. Before he knew what was happening, Leon had become the unofficial ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Imperial Five Swords, secret weapon of the Magic Tower Coalition, and Holy Sword of the Holy Nation.

Titles that were absurd even one at a time had piled up in an unbroken chain.

Not just the students—the professors were chattering about him too. Everywhere he went, eyes followed.

Only then grasping the gravity of the situation, Leon tried to set the record straight—but the rumor had already spread like a wildfire.

And above all, where, and to whom, exactly, was he supposed to explain himself?

It's baseless gossip. It'll die down on its own.

It had to. It simply had to.

Leon crossed himself, sloppily and again and again, and prayed.

Just then, the sound of casual chatter drifted in from outside.

"I hear Professor Leon is an unofficial Imperial Four Swords."

Yesterday it was Five Swords! Did he climb another rank overnight?!

Leon choked back the scream clawing up his throat.

"It's all baseless rumors anyway. I don't believe a word of it."

A level-headed voice.

Yes! At least one sane person in this madhouse! Leon rejoiced inwardly.

Then came the sound of a soft snort.

A strange, creeping unease washed over him.

"Oh, you haven't heard, Professor?"

"I'm sorry, heard what—?"

"That Professor Leon slew seven demon knights."

...I did what?